


Snowbound

by Turn_of_the_Sonic_Screw



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, F/F, F/M, Implied Sexual Content, Multi, Recreational Drug Use
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-03
Updated: 2015-02-03
Packaged: 2018-03-10 08:56:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,106
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3284450
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Turn_of_the_Sonic_Screw/pseuds/Turn_of_the_Sonic_Screw
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Eleven, Twelve, River, and Clara are road-tripping professors who make some new friends while stuck in the snow.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Snowbound

“This is unseasonable,” Rory mutters, working his hands deeper into his armpits. He can see his breath, even inside their car.

“One Scotland joke and I swear...” Amy wags a finger at him. “...we'll never put the backseat to use again.” It had been Amy's idea to visit some of her distant relatives, but then, she'd never needed much of an excuse to leave Leadworth, nor had Rory needed one to follow her. They had pulled off the side of the road, hoping the storm would clear, but the snow had only continued to accumulate.

“Come on,” he says suddenly. “We've got to see if there's a place we can spend the night. Otherwise we'll freeze in here.” He mentally reviews the signs of hypothermia as Amy makes up her mind.

“Alright,” she says, and shudders as she forces the door open through the snow. “This sounds like the setup to a bad horror movie.”

“I thought you liked bad horror movies,” Rory jokes.

“I like watching bad horror movies _with you_ ,” Amy half-kids. Rory suddenly wishes for a sword, or something. The torch will have to do, he thinks, as its beam seems to vanish as the road snakes. There, just out of sight, is another vehicle.

“Is that an ambulance?” Amy asks.

“Maybe? Could be some small local company.” The blue and white paint scheme doesn't look familiar, but as he gets closer, the words “St. John's Hospital” are clearly visible on the sides, though they've been mostly worn away. “Maybe they can give us a hand.” But Amy has already dashed through the powder to rap on the door.

 

***

 

Ten minutes later, it seems they're as thick as thieves with the ambulance's inhabitants: two male and two female. “James and John Smith,” the elder man introduces himself and his brother. (“Half-siblings,” he explains. “Da had me very young and him very old.”)

“My wife, River Song, and my sister-in-law, Clara Oswald,” the younger man concludes.

“They claim to be married to us,” River quips. “But given how much time they spend tinkering with this old thing, I sometimes doubt their fidelity.” John looks flustered; James merely shrugs. “We call them the Doctors—they spend so much time in the ambulance, after all.”

“We _are_ doctors, River,” John points out. “Just not medical doctors, which is what everyone thinks of.” (All four, of them, in fact: Rory is impressed. Philosophy and physics for the men; archeology and literature for the women, all working as professors.)

“To be fair, we have had some marvelous adventures in the old girl,” Clara reminds her, thinking of the copy of 101 Places to See tucked in between their maps. “Stonehenge. Provence. Barcelona.” (“Cardiff,” River snorts.)

“You travel a lot, then?” Rory asks. He is reminded of their honeymoon in Venice; Amy had gotten food poisoning from some undercooked salmon, putting a damper on the trip.

“Not professionally,” Clara laughs. “But there are regular breaks in the teaching schedule.”

“That sounds nice,” Amy says wistfully. “We're actually going to visit family.”

“And us!” James says in a matching brogue. It's been so long since he's been able to go home, he muses. He just hopes he doesn't run into his old flame.

They trade reminisces until they have worked their way back to childhood. That's when the penny drops. “Hang on,” Amy says, staring at River. “You look...familiar.”

“You're Mels!” Rory says matter-of-factly. “How did we not recognize you sooner?”

John looks at him curiously. River explains: “Birth name, Melody Malone.” she shrugs. “I picked a different name to publish under, and since we met professionally...” His jaw drops, not doing his chin any favors. “I had my name changed before we married without telling you.” She grins smugly. “You know I hate to disappoint.”

“You bad, bad girl,” he says, waggling his finger at her. She winks in reply. “Sorry,” he says, turning back to Amy and Rory. “You were mentioning that you knew my wife?”

“She used to babysit us,” Rory begins.

“But we always say that we practically raised her, with all the trouble we kept her out of,” Amy tells them gleefully.

“My very bad girl,” John says, his voice quiet with arousal rather than anger. River merely smirks.

Time passes, and it becomes clear that the snow isn't going anywhere fast, and neither are they. First the space heater comes out, then the whiskey, finally the bong. “Mum never would have let you babysit if she could see us now. Aunt Sharon might actually have _died,_ ” Amy says as the rear of the vehicle fills with smoke. She feels weirdly comfortable, Rory at one arm and her long legs sprawled out into John's lap. Neither he nor his wife seem to mind. They all laugh, and she passes James the bong.

Another round or two—who's counting—of the weed and the atmosphere has shifted decidedly from comfortable, past cozy, and well into...intimate. Rory gets the distinct impression that their hosts are being very polite in front of their guests, and that, left to their own devices, things would be getting rather more handsy, and not necessarily in a monogamous sort of way. He doesn't particularly want to go out into the snow if he doesn't have to... He glances over at Amy for guidance, but she is apparently thinking the same thing.

“Are you in some sort of weird foursome thing?” Amy asks, her usually low inhibitions apparently obliterated by the intoxicants. She claps her hand over her mouth. “Sorry, that was--”

“Completely accurate, as it happens,” River says brazenly, pulling Clara into a kiss. It says a lot about how stoned Rory is that he barely lifts an eyebrow. Well, at least not until they all start getting naked.

 

***

 

Blessedly, they are all dressed again when a knock comes at the ambulance door. “Please,” a young woman begs, a middle-aged woman leaning heavily on her shoulder, face nearly green, “it's my wife—she's not good with the cold.”

And so they welcome Jenny and Vastra into the increasingly crowded back of the ambulance, and warm the newcomers up. They are married, as it happens, and were on their way to an adoption agency before they got caught up in the weather. “Make yourselves at home,” James says, as though they hadn't been in the middle of an orgy half an hour ago. The pot, at least, covers the smell of sex. And then there is tea, and cocoa, and more shagging, and conversation lasting well past dawn the next day. Really, they are almost disappointed when the plow comes through.

**Author's Note:**

> This is more or less inspired by the intersection of reports of people getting stuck in snowdrifts in upstate New York not too long ago and a blue and white VW van not far from where I live which immediately gave me the germs of "stoner road-trip AU."
> 
> In case anyone is curious about the specialties of the Doctors, I did actually put a bit of thought into it. Twelve, who is obsessed with what makes a good man and has a very Cartesian, 'can I trust my senses' Christmas special, is the philosophy professor. Eleven, who seems to spend an unusual amount of time (even by the standards of time-traveling aliens) on the wrong end of a paradox, is the physics professor. Their past destinations are, of course, not chosen at random either.


End file.
